


Grocery Interludes

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Joe and Nicky run to the store and contemplate Booker and Quynh's return to the Guard amidst the aisles.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	Grocery Interludes

**Author's Note:**

> this is a scene that happens during my other story "where do we go from here" where joe and nicky go to the store while the others bunker down in the apartment.
> 
> again, anyone who reads and has better translations than my feeble use of google translate, feel free to let me know. i unfortunately only have family and friends who are bilingual that can aid me with korean, spanish, tagalog, and pidgin. so help is always welcome!
> 
> in other stories ive liked to explore Booker's feelings on everything and now ive gotten to do the same for Joe mostly (only a tad with Nicky). when i saw how angry Joe was at the betrayal, it made me think about my own family. i have a couple people who, often, their prominent emotional display was anger. over the years, i learned that the anger was actually the surface level emotion, covering other underlying feelings. i was interested to explore more of why Booker's betrayal made Joe angry and what sadness or hurt or frustration could lay under it all. i love seeing complexity in Joe's anger.
> 
> i also liked getting to think about the timeline and life of the Guard in general through the centuries.

Joe drove while Nicky fiddled with the GPS on his phone, trying to find the closest grocery store near to Booker’s small apartment in Paris.

“Left at this light,” Nicky guided quietly. Joe didn’t respond, opting to give a curt nod.

Nicky eyed him quietly. His husband was upset. Rightfully so. But he didn’t comment on it, giving the other man a bit more time to process before he opened that can of worms. Joe was one who felt emotions fully, engaging with them rather than burying them. He loved Joe for the heart he wore on his sleeve, though it took knowing his tells and moods in order to know when to engage and when to let lie. They made their way to the store and wandered inside. Neither was in a rush to return, having confidence that the others would be alright till they got back.

Nicky had decided on simple, amassing the ingredients for sandwiches so that they could each assemble one how they liked it. He’d finished gathering produce, deli meats (halal and not), cheese and condiments and went to find Joe, who had muttered about the chip aisle. Nile had a tendency to stuff her sandwiches with potato chips and they humored her.

He found the other man staring up at the chips, though his dark eyes were unseeing, obviously lost in thought. Nicky moved to his side and placed a hand at the small of his back, under the jacket to feel his warmth.

“ _Amore_?” He asked quietly. Joe was pulled from his musings, turning to give him a weak smile.

“I cannot recall which brand she likes,” he huffed.

Nicky nodded and reached over to grab Nile’s favorite chips and a few others that would please the rest of the group well enough. Once it was all in the basket, he set it down and placed both hands on Joe’s shoulders.

“Talk to me, _habibi_ ,” he said quietly, blue eyes meeting brown, conveying the safety and love that centuries had grown and cultivated.

Joe sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about Quynh? How do you feel about her return?” Nicky offered. Ever since they’d seen Quynh’s video call telling them she was alive and torturing Booker while waiting for them, it had been a mad dash to reach the two and figure the mess out. They’d had little time to process it.

Joe blinked, thinking of the return of their long-lost sister. He tended to think, just like history, that the life of the Guard came in ages.

When it was just Andy, the Guard as it was, was her alone. A newborn immortal with centuries of war and loneliness as she lived. She’d done the hard job of being the first, of learning the life of immortality without others to teach her.

The time of Andy, Quynh and Lykon had been the teenage years in his mind. All young energy, high outlook, and endless decades of war together. He could picture a film of three teenagers in an exciting coming of age with eighties dance and singing numbers. That age had come to a halt with Lykon’s death. It was the hangover after the party. The sobering realization that while they could live long, they didn’t live forever. And like mortals, they knew not when their time would come.

It had taken a while for Andy and Quynh and Joe and Nicky to make their way to each other, but once they had, it had been centuries of golden aged life. Joe had considered the honeymoon phase of the Guard. There had been an easy affection and camaraderie of two couples together, making their family close knit with only the rare bout of turmoil or drama…until they’d lost Quynh.

The time that had followed, with the loss of Quynh, the addition of the narcissistic and morose Booker, could only classify the following centuries as the mid-life crisis. With the losses the Guard had suffered, Andy’s descent into jaded cynicism towards the world, and Booker’s struggle with adapting to immortality in his grief, it was a difficult time. It was the mid-forties man burnt out on the job, slogging through life trying to catch his breath with a beer in front of the tv every night. At the same time, they’d weathered the storm with their core intact. Nicky kept alive their desire to do good and Joe backed him. Andy held to one thing, that family mattered, and she dragged Booker along when he would have given up long ago. The Guard had been battered and bruised, but they’d held on until the catalyst for their renewal came around.

The addition of Nile had breathed renewal into the Guard, the birth of a new life. Andy had found her ‘why’ and Joe and Nicky had stood witness to their family rising from its ashes and the hope that infused them all was palpable. But it was fragile hope, prone to cracking with its newness. The issue of Booker’s betrayal gave the Guard an Achilles heel and Andy’s mortality kept them on the edge of a knife’s point. With the return of Quynh, he was unsure of where it would lead them.

“Habibi?” Nicky pulled him from his thoughts.

Joe gave Nicky a bit of a baffled look. “I can’t believe Quynh is here. We knew she was alive, but she’s _here_. I’m rather shocked. And relieved.”

Nicky nodded in agreement, pulling Joe with him to the bread aisle. “I think shocked is a definite emotion for everyone at the moment. But I’m equal parts worried, Joe. She doesn’t seem okay.”

“I can’t imagine anyone would be after what she experienced,” Joe answered. “She is a great deal angrier than that time we misplaced her bow. And that was _angry_.”

Nicky turned around from hunting for bread and raised a brow at his husband. “I believe that was when _you_ misplaced her bow, _Amore_.”

Joe shrugged with a grin. “We are one, _hayati_. You are complicit by association.”

Nicky rolled his eyes, turning back to his task as he selected a few loaves to put in the basket. He eyed his husband carefully before venturing into unsteady terrain cautiously. “And Booker?”

Joe immediately sobered, brows furrowing. “What about him?”

“How do you feel about him being here with us?” Nicky explained, needlessly, he was sure.

“How do _you_ feel about it?” Joe evaded. “You haven’t said much on the subject.”

“I feel a lot, Joe. But I imagine you have a lot of thoughts right now and need to process.”

Joe sighed. “You aren’t letting it go, are you, _hayati_?”

“No, love. You need to let the lid off the pressure cooker.”

Joe gave another heavy sigh, wandering to the frozen aisles where it featured the ice creams. Nile had a bit of a sweet tooth he always tried to cater too. As he scanned the brands and flavors, his husband followed patiently behind him, waiting him out.

“I’m angry,” Joe admitted. “One minute, I’m fine and then I see him and have to fight the urge to punch him. I get so angry that I don’t know what to say to him or do around him. Sometimes I don’t want to say anything for fear of what may come out because I am so. Very. Angry.” He finished his tirade on a growl.

Nicky straightened from where he was deliberating over two brands of cookies and cream. “Validly so. I am still angry as well.” Joe nodded, knowing that Nicky hadn’t felt any less angry than him. They just wore their anger differently at times. Joe’s ran hot, like a campfire throwing off flame and spark. Nicky’s was cold, but not in a way that suggested it was lesser. It was a subtle thing, like the creep of frost and the bone deep chill of winter. Joe’s was combative and showy. Nicky’s was like the cold deep that settled in the earth.

Nicky said little else, allowing Joe the floor to continue his thoughts.

“I’m hurt,” Joe confessed, this time much more quietly.

Nicky reached out and took his hand, pained understanding in his face. His thumb caressed Joe’s hand. “I am too.”

Together and unspoken, as if they read each other’s minds, the both slid to the floor, their backs braced against the cool doors of the freezer units behind them. Their hands were still clasped, lighter skin against darker, a beautiful contrast that had Joe always admiring when they held hands.

“He betrayed us, Nicolo,” Joe stated quietly.

Nicky nodded. There wasn’t much to say in response, and he knew sometimes his husband just had to get the words of an idea out to formulate the next. It was his way of processing. They’d often found that Nicky could just listen and Joe often came to a conclusion just because he’d had a sounding board that allowed him free space to speak his emotions and ideas into existence.

“How could he do that? Why would he do that,” Joe frowned, fingers tracing the veins of Nicky’s hand contemplatively. “I mean I know why. It’s no secret Booker was depressed and grieving and not adjusting to this life well.”

“That, and he was suicidal and in pain.” Nicky added.

“But, how could he?” Joe paused and then he looked up to Nicky, brown eyes intent and widened with realization. “He threw us away. I’m angry and I’m hurt because he threw all of us away when he betrayed us to Merrick.”

“He was your friend. He’s family. And you aren’t supposed to throw away friends and family when they love you,” Nicky supplemented in agreement. As difficult as it had been when Booker entered their lives, they’d loved him anyways. It was the weird lifeboat effect of the need for survival and community uniting those in opposition. Booker was family.

Andy and Booker had always enjoyed each other’s company. They were two sides of the same coin: sarcastic, jaded and cynical, feeling things heavily but repressing them for one reason or another. They had kept each other afloat, especially since Joe and Nicky gravitated towards each other.

Nicky had actually enjoyed being around Booker. They’d had rousing debates on theology and the identity of god. They shared their thoughts on the latest books they’d read. They often bet, usually over the most ridiculous things that had Joe and Andy rolling their eyes while hiding smiles of amusement. Their friendship was always a quiet one, like the flow of a small, steady stream. Nothing wide or deep, but predictable and comforting.

And Joe. Joe and Booker had been friends. Brothers. It wasn’t just the futbol games and watching Nicky lose at betting. When they’d first found Booker, he was almost feral with loneliness and grief. Nicky had treated him kindly, like a wounded cat to be coaxed. Andy, with long suffering patience. But Joe, undeterred by his prickly attitude and erected walls, had barreled in to embrace Booker’s presence without reservation. He’d sought Booker out often, making sure he wasn’t alone. To Booker’s chagrin and bafflement, Joe talked to him even when the Frenchman refused to converse in return. Joe seemed immune to his morose growling and lashing out, and Nicky was convinced it had helped Booker adjust to their group as a whole.

“Why aren’t we enough for him, Nicolo?” Joe asked in a pained voice, hurt coloring his tone. Nicky felt his heart break at the sound of his love’s agony. Here was the crux of the matter, the root of Joe’s hurt and anger. Booker’s reason for betraying them implied that the Guard hadn’t mattered enough to stay. And it had gutted Joe. “I know that losing family hurts, and I would never want to detract from that or say something to negate that pain. But why can’t we be enough for him to at least try being a family?”

Nicky lay his head on Joe’s shoulder, seeking comfort as much as he was attempting to give it. “Sometimes it’s hard to see what truth is when you surround yourself with the lies the world has thrown at you to block your vision. Lies led me to hurt people in the delusion of zealotry and devotion to God. If anyone knows what it’s like to be completely tunnel-visioned by a thought or idea or emotion, I would.” Nicky tilted his head to look up at him. It had only been a little less than a year since they’d parted in London, but they’d all suffered for the separation.

“We are enough. But he has to choose us, _mio cuore,_ ” Nicky sighed. “And every day he doesn’t hurts us. Sadly, it hurts him too.”

Nicky listened to Joe’s breaths above him, reveling in the warmth of his side in contrast to the freezer door at his back. He waited, sensing the still unresolved turmoil in Joe’s frame.

“For a while, I wanted him to hurt,” Joe admitted, tones of guilt obvious as he said it. “I wanted him to regret what he did.”

Nicky thought of the events that led up to their being captured by Merrick. He thought of Booker’s stubborn resistance to finding Nile, of seeing the resignation on Booker’s face when he admitting to shooting Andy. And he thought of Booker watching them leave him next to the river, more alone than he’d ever been and left with only the consequences of his choices. “I think he did both of those things, amore,” Nicky said quietly.

“It is cruel of me to want it,” Joe acknowledged.

Nicky sighed. “Perhaps. Or maybe it is not that you necessarily wish pain and regret upon him. Maybe it is that you want to know that he acknowledges the pain he’s inflicted and that he knows the extent of the hurt that he’s done to us.”

“Does that make me bad?” Joe hung his head, staring at the linoleum tiles under his boots.

Nicky reached up and placed a hand on the far side of Joe’s face, turning it towards his own. “It makes you human, _mio cuore_.”

Joe’s brow furrowed together. “I am sad and angry that he hurt people I love. I am sad he was hurting too.”

Nicky nodded encouragingly.

“And what I really don’t want to admit is that I’m angry at myself.”

Nicky paused at that, caught by surprise. “Why?”

“I should have done something, Nicolo. I should have seen his struggle or realized how far he’d fallen. I should have done more for him and I didn’t. He failed to treat us as family should, but I failed him too.”

“Joe-”

“I failed him, Nicky. He’s my brother and I didn’t love him like I should have.” And then tears spilled from Joe’s eyes, the pain and grief and guilt welling up with the weight of the previous months.

“Oh, Yusuf,” Nicky said. His heart cracked at the sight of the tears down his beloved’s face and he reached up to brush them away with his thumbs, but they overflowed too fast for him to keep up. He shifted to his knees and pulled Joe’s head to the junction of his neck. Joe’s arms encircled him, clutching the fabric at the back of his jacket as if it were a lifeline. His weeping wet Nicky’s shirt, but he cared little for its state. He didn’t even care when an old man turned the corner with his creaky cart, saw the two huddled together in the aisle, and turned right back around with a flustered look on his face.

When Joe’s sobs had calmed, Nicky pulled back enough to wipe the last of the tears Joe’s dark beard had caught. He gave a watery smile of his own, unable to not be moved by his love’s weeping, and grasped his face between his hands. “Every day you give me another reason to love you.”

Joe frowned in confusion. “Because I failed Booker?”

“Because you love him enough to want to do right by him. Because you care so much for him that you are willing to take responsibility for how you, as his family, cared for him and will continue to care for him. You love him enough to give a damn about him and I love you for that.”

“I’m still angry. And hurt. I don’t know if that’s going to go away anytime soon.”

“I am too, _a_ _mati_. And that’s ok. It will take time. There is still much to be fixed. We must learn how to love him where he is at, grief and all. He needs to make some decisions as well: about us, about himself.”

Joe nodded, giving him a tremulous smile. “I hope one day, he will decide that we are enough, _hayati_.” He leaned down and gave Nicky an achingly sweet kiss, filled with thankfulness and affection.

“I hope so too,” he grinned back, returning the kiss with a more insistent one of his own. They stayed there in the freezer aisle, making out to the point of almost inappropriate until an employee pointedly asked if they needed assistance with finding what they needed or if they needed direction to the checkout. Grinning under the employee’s withering frown, they climbed to their feet and made their way to the front of the store.

Everything was far from fixed. They were still mad at Booker. Still worried for Quynh. Still trying to put their fractured little family back together. It would take time and work, things that didn’t come immediately. So, for now, Joe and Nicky enjoyed an interlude in the heaviness of their lives before they returned to the others.

**Author's Note:**

> Mio Amore- my love  
> Habibi- dear, sweetheart  
> Mio Cuore- my heart  
> Hayati- my life  
> Amati- beloved
> 
> Annnnnnnd, back to bullets!


End file.
